The Museum
by RockDiva
Summary: A school fieldtrip to the museum is an oppurtunity for students to get into plenty of mishcief. But will that mischief lead to trouble when a blizzard hits the town? Read to find out. Includes BenSadie and RainMargaret. Written prior to English Patience t


**Sadie: (Inside her head-as she and other students are walking through a museum)** It can be argued that animals are better off in captivity thanks to safety and constant care, thus they have a longer lifespan. Then again, you disturb the ecosystem when you take animals from their natural habitat and force a man-made one on them and each animal can't live the way nature intended. Teenagers face a similar dilemma. It's called high school. Each student is forced to put up with the same mandated routine everyday, thus stifling the achievements they could make if they were allowed to follow their own interests. So instead of each person shining its brightest, a person has to vie for attention and prove its capability when ever it is demanded. Apparently the instincts needed for survival in the real world aren't a much needed asset in high school.

**Arden: **Okay whose idea was it to come here on a field trip and why do I have a feeling the answer is Hawthorne?

**Sadie: **Come on, Arden. You know it was Ms. Mann's idea for the sophomores and juniors to take this trip. But it doesn't mean I'm not enjoying it.

**Arden:** How can you enjoy this? Don't you get enough of it at school already?

**Vivian:** I agree. It's nice to have hands on learning instead of out of a textbook. It makes it easier to understand.

**Rain:** I agree too!

**Hal:** Of course you agree.

**Margaret:** Mallory, would you please control your boyfriend.

**Hal:** I am not her boyfriend.

**Margaret:** Then maybe we should learn to keep our comments to ourselves.

**Rain: (whispering)** Thanks.

**Ben:** You have to admit, Red. This is kind of boring. A trip to an art museum would have been a better way to spend a field trip.

**Owen:** I disagree. I mean what could be better than seeing first hand things that have shaped the course of the way we live our daily lives.

**Ben:** So what's the point of the Star Trek exhibition?

**Yuma:** Bite your tongue. Star Trek is as much a part of history as the hobbits are part of the fourth age of middle-earth.

**Rain:** Middle-Earth?

**Margaret:** Hobbits?

**Vivian: **He means The Lord of the Rings. Like the greatest books ever written and movies ever made.

**Margaret: **Oh, you mean the one where Orlando Bloom was an elf! I think I saw pieces of it.

**Rain:** I was uh, just pretending. I knew what he was talking about.

**Vivian:** Right. And so you're a Trekkie too? I love going to the conventions.

**Rain:** You bet. **(whispering to Margaret)** What's a Trekkie again?

**Margaret:** Like I know.

**Hal:** You're all a bunch of lame-o's. I mean Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, what's next.

**Arden:** Ooh, I know. It's called pop-up books with pretty colors. I might as well be in a zoo.

**Hal:** I oughta…

**Mallory:** Aww…is Arden feeling homesick?

**Arden:** I'd watch who you're messing with.

**Mallory:** You want a catfight? Well, guess what. I have claws too. Nobody messes with my Hal and gets away with it.

**Hal:** Okay, whoa there. Down, kitty. **(trying to pull Mallory back)**

**Sadie: (to Ben)** And you would have rather unleashed this group on an art gallery?

**Vivian:** Oh my goodness! Look! It says that they're playing The Lord of the Rings in the museum's larger than life theater. Oh, but it's only the second one.

**Yuma:** Although I agree that it is the most boring of the three, the experience could still prove fun.

**Rain: **I say we go.

**Owen:** I guess it could be fun.

**Arden:** Did you say Orlando Bloom is in it? Okay, I'll bite.

**Margaret:** Second that notion.

**Mallory:** I'll go if Hal will.

**Hal:** Hmm…even a lame-o dork movie would be better than walking around this snooze fest.

**Sadie:** You guys! It says this movie is almost 3 hours long. Ms. Mann will probably notice if we're gone for that long.

**Ben:** Relax, Red. If you don't want to go you don't have to. The rest of us will still have just enough time after the movie to find the group and pretend that we were never gone.

**Sadie:** Wait. Don't tell me you're going too.

**Ben:** I heard the special effects for this movie were pretty good. And it's not like I'm completely enjoying this field trip as it is.

**Arden: (walking over with a coy look on her face)** Yeah, Sadie. You don't have to come if you don't want to.

**Sadie: (In "Sadie Spot")** Okay, so the last thing that I really want is Arden trying to flirt with Ben in a dark theater. Still, I didn't want to run the risk of getting detention for the rest of the year if we did get caught. Then again, Hal was going, so atleast if mom and dad found out, we'd both be in trouble. So this is one of those rare moments when the suppressed instincts try to forage back to the surface and take hold. (Out loud) You know what, a movie will be fun. (Inside) I hope.

**

* * *

**

**(In the theater)**

**(Sadie is asleep with her head on Ben's shoulder…who is also asleep. Both Margaret and Vivian are asleep with their heads on Rain's shoulders. Rain is asleep with his head laid back. Arden is sleeping with her head unknowingly resting on Ron Yuma's shoulder, who is also surprisingly asleep and snoring rather loudly. Owen and Mallory seem simply passed out. The only one awake is Hal, who is getting into the movie.)**

**Hal:** No, Gollum, don't turn on master. Master saved you! Don't do it! **(His screaming at the movie's end wakes everybody up one by one.)**

**Sadie:** I thought you said it'd be just a lame-o dork movie.

**Hal:** No, dear sister, that was genius.

**Ben: **Genius enough to put everyone but you asleep.

**Arden: (waking up and realizing how she had been sleeping)** I have to go home and shower!

**Rain: (wakes up and sees Margaret and Vivian) **Rise and shine sleeping beauties. There's a 100 percent chance that there's a Rainbow in the sky.

**(Vivian and Margaret wake up and look around rather embarrassed.)**

**Sadie:** Okay, you guys. We really need to get back. Wait. Weren't there more people in here than just us? Or did they just get tired like us and walk out?

**Hal:** They all walked out when they heard this like siren thing.

**Sadie:** Siren thing! Hal! What siren?

**Hal:** You know the one that goes "Whoooo" **(imitates a storm siren)**

**Arden: **You mean a storm siren, you idiot?

**Hal:** Yeah, one of those.

**Ben:** This can't be good. **(They rush out of the theater and find that the entire museum has been evacuated except for them.)**

**Sadie:** There's nobody here! Why didn't you wake us up!?

**Hal:** And miss the rest of the movie? No way.

**Sadie: (looks at watch) **Wait a second. My watch says that it's already almost 5:00. That movie should have ended a long time ago.

**Hal:** Oh yeah, well. When they evacuated the building, they shut down the movie. So I had to swipe the keys to the projector room and restart it.

**Owen:** Dude, have you never heard of video rental?

**Sadie:** Wait, you said you have the keys?

**(In the break room)**

**Margaret: **The t.v. won't work, so the power must have gone out.

**Vivian:** This radio has batteries in it.

**Yuma:** Excellent survival skills, Vivian.

**Sadie:** Let's hope they work. **(the radio does work and they tune it to a station with weather.)**

**Radio Reporter:** And the blizzard rages on. Power in almost all of the city has been blacked out and it's reported that several homes have had to resort to generators, especially in homes with electric heating. In other news, a group of local teens have reportedly gone missing during the city-wide school and business evacuation that was declared this afternoon. Parents wait anxiously by their phones for any word from their teens. And local rescue workers will begin a search for the missing teens after nightfall.

**Ben: (turning off the radio)** We should probably try to preserve the batteries.

**Mallory:** I think we're the missing teens.

**Hal:** Even I figured that one out, Mallory.

**Owen:** I think we're going to have bigger problems than that. My dad constructs buildings for a living, and a building of this size runs solely on electric heating. And if there's a generator, the chances of us being able to first locate it, and then fire it up, aren't likely.

**Rain:** We're all going to freeze to death.

**Sadie: (In head)** So my instincts to go along with them had been wrong. And now nobody knew that we were in a museum, quickly losing the little heat that we had. And just like animals that are stuck together for long periods of time, I had a feeling that things could get worse.

**

* * *

**

**Sadie:** It's no use. The security system must have the entire building on lockdown. We need the password to get out of here.

**Arden:** And even my high dollar phone isn't getting any service.

**Mallory:** I don't mean to make things worse, but it's really starting to get cold.

**Hal:** Mallory's right. In case you haven't noticed, I can see my breath. **(breathes to prove a point)**

**Ben:** Hal's got a point. The most important thing we focus on is finding a way to get some heat.

**Yuma:** And why is it that 3 of us aren't wearing coats?

**(They all look at Arden, Vivian and Margaret)**

**Arden: **Please, I didn't want to carry my coat around the museum all day long. It's on the bus.

**Vivian:** I forgot mine in my locker at school.

**Margaret:** I don't have a coat that matches this outfit. And I didn't expect this to happen. If I had been planning on being trapped in a heatless museum, I would have made an exception.

**Sadie:** Okay, then. Looks like 3 of us have even more of a reason to find a source of heat. Let's split up. Me and Ben will…

**Arden:** And me. I'm going with your group too, Hawthorne.

**Sadie:** Okay, fine. Two groups of 3 and two groups of 2. Pick quickly and get going. Come on, Arden.

**(Sadie, Ben and Arden leave in one direction. Yuma and Owen immediately call "dibs" on going with Vivian. Mallory insists on going with Hal. Rain and Margaret are left in the final team.)**

**Rain:** Aren't you cold?

**Margaret: **That's a stupid question to ask.

**Rain:** Yeah well, this is kind of a stupid situation. Here. **(He takes off his coat and hands it to Margaret) **

**Margaret:** What are you doing?

**Rain:** Helping a friend get warm.

**Margaret:** Yeah, but you could use this to totally impress Vivian.

**Rain:** I might not always be the first one to catch on to things, but I have a feeling I'm not the only one trying to impress Vivian.

**(They both look a little ways ahead to see both Owen _and _Yuma offering their coats to Vivian.)**

**Margaret: **Maybe not, but I'm impressed. And I think you still have the best chance with Vivian. You'll see.

**Rain:** Thanks. Now here, take it. **(Margaret takes his coat.)**

**(Somewhere else)**

**Sadie:** Okay, we need to keep our eyes open for anything. Maybe an exhibit with blankets or candles.

**Ben:** We're going to steal from the museum now, Red?

**Sadie:** It beats our other option. What did Rain call it? Oh yeah, freezing to death. Besides, we wouldn't even be in this situation if you had all listened to me.

**Ben: **You're right. I should have listened to you instead of trying to be Mr. Rebel.

**Sadie:** It's okay. This is kinda fun. Like an adventure? Besides, it's good survival practice for when I'm trekking through the Amazon someday.

**Ben: **Don't you mean when _we're _trekking through the Amazon? I have to take photos of something now don't I?

**Sadie:** That sounds nice.

**Arden:** I hate to interrupt this touching moment…actually it doesn't really bother me. But I'd like to point out that my phone has a little bit of a signal!

**Ben:** A signal? Sweet! Don't move. Maybe it'll get stronger.

**(They hear someone screaming. Suddenly they turn to see Hal running straight towards Arden, chased by Mallory.)**

**Sadie:** Hal, lookout!

**(Hal runs right into Arden, sending her cell phone flying through the air and breaking in half as it crashes into the floor.)**

**Ben:** I though she said it was a high dollar phone.

**Sadie:** This isn't funny, Ben.

**(The others, who heard Hal's screaming, joined them.)**

**Arden:** I had a signal, but the village idiot here broke my phone.

**Hal:** Hey! You weren't the one being chased by stalker-girl over there.

**Mallory:** All I wanted was one kiss.

**Owen:** Wait, you said you got a signal? Where?

**Arden:** Right here.

**Owen:** That's it. We found the generator. It's right beneath us. The power from the generator was enough to give your phone the signal it needed. So, if we get down to the boiler room, maybe just maybe we can start up the generator.

**Margaret: (pulling out her cell phone)** And maybe the closer we are the stronger the signal we can get.

**Rain:** We'll just call 9-1-1. Their power never goes out.

**Vivian:** Brilliant, Rain.

**Sadie:** Let's hurry. Hal, we're gonna need those keys again.

**(Down in the Boiler Room)**

**(The guys work on getting the generator running while the girls work on getting a phone signal with Margaret's phone)**

**Sadie: (narrating)**The guys were able to get the generator running. Which was a good thing, since it took us another hour and a half to get a good enough signal to make a call to 9-1-1. Then it took another hour on top of that to clear the area around the building so that they could open the door to get us out. **(Outside the parents and rescue workers are shoveling and inside everyone is sitting in a circle, listening to the radio)** By the time they did get to us, we were all pretty ready for the sound lashings we were sure to get. But surprisingly, they were so happy that we were safe that we were able to escape the lashings and skip straight to the one month groundings that we all got. Well, except for Arden, who somehow weaseled her way out with no new cell phone for two weeks. And luckily only three people walked away with small colds: Rain, Owen and Yuma. But I have a feeling that they didn't mind too much, especially Rain who got the royal treatment from Margaret who figured he got the cold she would have gotten. **(Margaret is carrying soup to Rain who is lying in bed next to a humidifier.) **And the more I think about our little adventure, I realize that even though high school is basically like captivity, when it matters the most, humans are able to hold on to their instincts and pull together, just the way it should be.


End file.
